


BXHIBITION, 
“NOVEMBER 17-DECEMBER 15 


A ie: SE a OS add ea 


a 












" 
e 
» 
> 
~ 
ry y 
* 
; 
. ” _ 
+: £ 
4 t 
5 v af c F r Z : ae 
e / . ' : ‘; ; 
; : ’ ‘ * 4 | aay 





€ 





ER GALLERY 


NEW YORK 










SA TALOGUE 








BRANCUSI 


By PAUL MOoRAND 


SCULPTOR’S studio, as the public imagines it and as it is perpetu- 

ated on the screen by those guardians of the stereotyped, the motion 
picture directors, is a campo santo filled with dramatic statues of Carrara 
marble, blue and livid as death, with here and there, to cheer it up, divans, 
bibelots, bric-a-brac, and travel souvenirs. Rodin himself, who so liked to 
be told that he was a force of nature, continued this tradition. I remember 
having as a child often wandered through his studio in the rue de |’Uni- 
versité. JI remember certain of his pieces, like the Porte de l’Enfer, which 
were intended to astonish, and a whole crowd of workmen, fine ladies and 
pupils hovering about him, exactly as any Renaissance master must have 
been surrounded. In this respect Rodin was at one with the School, the 
Institute. 

Brancusi, on the contrary, is a modern, a sculptor of tomorrow. Let us 
visit his studio. Studio? ‘This stone quarry? Where are the big declama- 
tory subjects only waiting to be set up in some forum? Where are the pic- 
turesque clays, the “‘lost waxes”? Nothing here but great blocks of building 
stone, beams, trunks of trees, boulders and rocks, and here and there the 
highlight of a polished bronze. One of these primitive forms detaches 
itself from the rest, and advances toward us, massively. It is Brancusi. A 
gray beard which recalls Walt Whitman’s; the clear eyes of the Latin, and 
a look of kindness, courage and certitude—so Brancusi appears to us. 

Erancusi is a born artisan. He knows nothing of pupils, assistants, stone- 
pointers, polishers or cutters. He does everything for himself. His mate- 
rials are always true to him, always faithful. He has approached them from 
every angle. He has worked at all trades. Brancusi, we know, is a Rou- 
manian, of the old peasant stock of that beautiful country. Legend has it 
that prodded on by the demon of sculpture he trudged on foot to Paris. 
The Ecole des Beaux Arts itself could not tame this indomitable nature. 
Calmly and fearlessly Brancusi keeps on working. He works on without 
masters or disciples, without advertising, without toadying art critics. 
The extreme freedom of Paris has allowed Brancusi to remain the least 
eiarisian~ of artists, and what is:indeed rarer still, the least “Parisian ai 
Roumanians. The public which knows and loves Brancusi is that which 
sought out and appreciated the douanier Rousseau, Derain or Matisse long 
before they became celebrated. 


Our Brancusi works without haste. In this alone he is not of our day. 
At a moment when everyone is rushing into extravagance, he has understood 
that the one true luxury is not to hurry. He collaborates with Time. His 
taste for solitude, his conscience, his respect for his material, his joy in 
living and in creating, his patience, his passionate temperament, his vio- 
lence are never expressed on the surface, for that surface is as hard and 
polished as only he can make it. 

Never does Brancusi produce repetitions. Never without reason does he 
translate a theme for one medium into another. Respecting the individu- 
ality of his medium, always he transposes. He knows what so many ignore; 
that what has been thought out in wood or in stone, cannot without modi- 
fication be executed in bronze. 

Brancusi dips into primitive life, moves in it without losing anything of 
his vital force, of his genetic puissance or his creative faculties. Everything 
close to Nature inspires him. This hewn mass of wood, suggesting from 
one angle the crane of an ancient fireplace, is the cock. Now in the cock 
everything suggests the crémaillére—the shadow, the crest, the crow. Here- 
in Brancusi joins the most modern poetry. His fish glides lke a meteor. 
His birds sing and fly through space. His woods speak of the happiness of 
their new life. His Socrates strikes us as a wireless post which is broad- 
casting. The grace of his female figures charms us like lovely music. 
“Look at this work by Brancusi; had it been unearthed among some ancient 
ruins, it would be acclaimed as a marvel,” Jacques Doucet once remarked 
of the “Sleeping Muse,” which Brancusi has known how to place on the 
ground as a head is placed on a pillow or an ostrich egg in the sand. 

Let us take Brancusi’s most abstract works—or rather his most realistic, 
for he claims that ‘“‘what is real is not the external form, but the essence of 
things. Starting from this truth it is impossible for any one to express any- 
thing essentially real by imitating its exterior surface.” These ovoid shapes, 
these polished cylinders, this plastic geometry embodied in his column 
without end, we must admire on trust, even if—as often happens to me—we 
cannot fully comprehend them. Our hands have lingered too long over the 
patina of bronzes of the Italian Renaissance, over Syracusan medallions, 
over the Kore of the Acropolis and the cheeks of Buddhas. It is high time 
to seek cleaner contacts, more complex pleasures. Here we are with Bran- 
cusi at the extreme pole of purity. The satisfaction we experience before 
his art is of a quality already so immaterial that, though we owe it to the 
senses, it is to the spirit that we offer thanks. 


September, 1926. 


PROPOS BY BRANCUSI 


Direct cutting is the true road to sculpture, but also the most dangerous 
for those who don’t know how to walk. And in the end, direct or indirect, 
cutting means nothing, it is the complete thing that counts. 


High polish is a necessity which certain approximately absolute forms 
demand of some materials. It is not always appropriate, it is even very 
harmful for certain other forms. 


Simplicity is not an end in art, but one arrives at simplicity in spite of 
oneself, in approaching the real sense of things. Simplicity is complexity 
itself, and one has to be nourished by its essence in order to understand its 
value. 


It is not the things that are difficult to make, but to put ourselves in con- 
dition to make them. 


When we are no longer children, we are already dead. 


To see far, that is one thing, to go there that is another. 


It is something to be clever, but being honest is worth while. 





2" 





No. 1 CHILD’S HEAD (Bronze) 1910 








(Marble and stone) 1912 


<ieisinieagmeeiinal 


i 





CARYATID (Old Oak) 1915 


NOB: 





NO, 4. THE KISS (Stone) 1908 





NO. 5. NEW BORN (Marble) 1915 





PROMETHEUS (Marble) 1911 


6. 


. 


NO 





CHILD’S HEAD (Wood) 1913 


NO. 7. 





NO. 8. PENGUINS (Marble) 1914 





CHIMERA (Old Oak) 1918 


NO. 9. 





NO. 10. YELLOW BIRD (Marble) 1921 


NO. 11. TORSO OF A YOUNG MAN (Walnut) 1922 








NO. 12. TORSO OF A YOUNG GIRL (Onyx) 1918 


Mee apenas 
Mee 
<i 





NO. 13. FISH (Colored Marble) 1922 





NO. 14. FISH (Polished Bronze) 1926 





NO. 15. PORTRAIT (Marble) 1916 





BASE (Old Oak) 1920 


NO. 16. 





NO. 17. ADAM (Old Oak) 1921 





NO. 18. EVE (Old Oak) 1921 


=) 
qa 
oO 
bol 
~ 

x 

~ 

Ss 

< 
ie) 
NS 

S 
ns 
“a 
S 
S 
Pa 
Z. 
x 
o) 
‘e) 
jae) 
ca 
el 
=| 
= 


SESS 


NO. 19. 








GOLDEN BIRD (Polished Bronze) 1919 


NO. 20. 





GIRL (Onyx) 1922 


~, 
I 


TORSO OF A YOUNC 


NO. 21. 





be 




















NO. 22. 


PRODIGAL SON (Wood) 1925 


Collection Walter C. Arensberg 


INO 23: 





sf 


SOCRATES (Old Oak) 1923 





NO. 24. MLLE. POGANY (Marble) 1919 





NO. 25. PORTRAIT (Polished Bronze) 1916 
Collection Walter C. Arensberg d 





NO. 26. BIRD IN SPACE (Marble) 1923. Height 57!4 inches 





NO. 27. BLOND NEGRESS (Polished Bronze) 1926 
Collection Eugene Meyer, Jr. 





NO, 28. COCK (Walnut) 1924 





NO. 29. THE CHIEF (Walnut) 1925 





NO. 30. BIRD IN SPACE (Marble) 1925. Height 72 inches, 
Collection Eugene Meyer, Jr. 





COLUMN WITHOUT END (Old Oak) 1918 


NO. 31. 





NO. 32. THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD (Marble) 1924 


BRANCUSI’S GOLDEN BIRD 


The toy 
become the aesthetic archetype 


As if 

some patient peasant God 
had rubbed and rubbed 
the Alpha and Omega 

of Form 

into a lump of metal. 


A naked orientation 
unwinged, unplumed 
—the ultimate rhythm 
has lopped the extremities 
of crest and claw 

from 

the nucleus of flight. 


The absolute act 

of art 

conformed 

to continent sculpture 

—hbare as the brow of Osiris— 
This breast of revelation 


An incandescent curve 
licked by chromatic flames 
in labyrinths of reflections 


This gong 

of polished hyperaesthesia 
shrills with brass 

as the aggressive light 
strikes 

its significance 


The immaculate 
conception 

of the inaudible bird 
occurs 

in) gorgeous teticence 


MINA Loy 
The Dial 


Brancusi is a galoot; he saves tickets to take him nowhere; a galoot 
with his baggage ready and no time table; oh yes, Brancusi is a 
galoot; he understands birds and skulls so well, he knows the hang 
of the hair of the coils and plaits on a woman’s head, he knows them 
so far back he knows where they came from and where they are going; 
he is fathoming down for the secrets of the first and the oldest makers 
of shapes. 


Let us speak with loose mouths to-day not at all about Brancusi 
because he has hardly started nor is hardly able to say the name of 
the place he wants to go when he has time and is ready to start; 
O Brancusi, keeping hardwood planks around your doorsteps in 
the sun waiting for the hardwood to be harder for your hard hands 
to handle, you Brancusi with your chisels and hammers, birds going 
to cones, skulls going to eggs—how the hope hugs your heart you 
will find one cone, one egg, so hard when the earth turns mist there 
among the last to go will be a cone, an egg. 


Brancusi, you will not put a want ad in the papers telling God 
it will be to his advantage to come around and see you; you will not 
grow gabby and spill God earfuls of prayers; you will not get fresh 
and familiar as if God is a nextdoor neighbor and you have counted 
His shirts on a clothes line; you will go stammering, stuttering and 
mumbling or you will be silent as a mouse in a church garret when 
the pipe organ is pouring ocean waves on the sunlit rocks of ocean 
shores; if God is saving a corner for any battling bag of bones, there 
will be one for you, there will be one for you, Brancusi. 


CARL SANDBURG 
Slabs of the Sunburnt West 


... Tenez, la téte féminine que voici est précisément de ce jeune 
Roumain. Comme c’est expressif! Pourtant cet oeuf de cuivre se 
bossue a peine d’un relief. Et la matiére en est-elle assez douce au 
toucher, au regard! La, lisse comme un glagon qui fond, et la, grenue, 
la, irisée, et la, mate; tels sont les jeux du feu surveillés par un artiste 
subtil. Que ne sort-il de fouilles, cet objet: on s’émerveillerait. 


JACQUES DOUCET 
Bulletin de la Vie Artistique 


For Brancusi, art does not exist by itself. From its beginnings 
to its modern conception, art has been an appanage of the religion. 
The artist has been the fanatic who knew how to materialize 
the visions of his faith. The greatest masterpieces of the past syn- 
chronize with the periods of the greatest religious exaltation. The 
exaltation past, decadence always followed, and that decadence 


invariably fell into imitative realism. THE ARTS 


In the case of the ovoid, I take it Brancusi is meditating upon pure 
form free from all terrestrial gravitation; form as free in its own 
life as the form of the analytic geometers; and the measure of his 
success in this experiment (unfinished and probably unfinishable) 1s 
that from such angles at least the ovoid does come to life and appear 


ready to levitate. EzrRA POUND 


The Little Review 


ie. To me, Brancusi appears as pure an artist as Bach or 
Poussin. And if I am asked, as by implication I am, to say what I 
consider Brancusi’s most valuable qualities, I reply: an amazingly 
sure sense of relations and a most delicate feeling for quality. 


CLIVE BELL 


Vogue. 


January 8, 1923) 


“All of the things are now set up and are beautiful. Please tell — 
Brancusi how delighted I am with all of them. Each one is more 
beautiful than the others. .. » They are all beautiful things aes 


JOHN QUINN TO H. P. ROCHE 


It is obvious to one who looks sympathetically upon the 
work of Brancusi that for him sculpture is a form without holes 
in it. ‘The mass is unified and continuous; it is one solid piece; 
there are no arms or legs, attached but not belonging to the main 
trunk; no fluttering draperies that do not belong fundamentally to 
the central structure; nothing waving in the air and not a part of 


the central mass. Papin Wanna 


New York World. 


Brancusi is honest. I think people who understand the purest 
essence of painting, the purest essence of sculpture or the purest 
essence of anything will feel instinctively that such exquisitely fin- 
ished and subtle carvings as his are can only have been produced by 
an honest person. Many people felt him to be honest merely by 


studying his sculpture. Henry MCBRIDE 


New York Sun. 


Abseits fiir sich steht Brancusi, einer, der nur seinen Weg gehen 
kann, einer, dem bildnerische Intensitat im Blut zu liegen, der sich 
an alles wagen zu konnen scheint und in einem langen Bildhauer- 


leben sich auch an allerlei schon gewagt hat. Pear eerrn tt 


Das Kunstblatt. 


Plus acharné qu’un Ucello, Vinimitable Brancusi poursuit, aux 
confins du désespoir, sa lucide et radieuse recherche de la purete 
1 lA 
absolue, dans la forme, en sol. AND Re GATTO 


Propos d’atelier. 


Wie eine Pflanze riihrt er sich nicht vom Fleck; seine hauptsach- 
liche Arbeit ist das Werden-lassen. NT REET REN ce 


Der Querschnitt 


CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI 


L’OUVRIER 


An Olympian cave, marmoreal, still; 

The breathing of giants, 

The white ray undivided. 

Fluted columns, vaulting 

From pavilions of the air. 

Herons of the Moon flying through velvet mist; 
The Golden Bird, Sun-Bird) Bird of Paradise 
Dazzling in upper space. 

Stupendous masses of rock; 

Old wood mellowed, seasoned by time, 

Hewn from sea-forests. 

Marble—two lovers, the Embracers, 
Bronze—a head accented by a single eyebrow; 
Again marble—a smooth head; Brancusi speaking: 
“With this form I could move the universe.” 


L?> HOMME 


Pan thewed with sinews of ilex trees; 
A faun's heady black «curls, 
(One suspects onyx horns). 
A beard touched with white; 
Darkness between two white fingers; 
The throat—a column; 
Quick hands, gestures 
Faultless of intention, 
Flinging aside knowledge, 
Reaching for perfection 
As a child reaches for a flower; 
Dissolving wisdom 
Tragically for the wise. 

L” ARBRE 


In the Forest of St. Germain, he caressed a tree trunks 
“This is my brother. 

With only a little change in my substance, 

I could take root in the ground, 

Grow motifs instead of cutting them in marble. 
The sap in me would grow a new form of tree trunk. 
I would spread out my branches over lovers 
When they lie down upon the leaves.” 


LE PORTRAIT 
Papier ivoire, blank, a satin glaze, 
“A Madame, Votre ami 
Constantin Brancusi. 
I am sending you my portrait, 


Papier ivoire, blank, a satin glaze; 

I could not please you 

With lies of the sun or of pencil. 

All that I am to you is here for you; 

You will see me as I would have you see me. 

IT shall not ask you how you will precipitate my likeness; 
I trust you.” 


DINER AVEC BRANCUSI 


A glow in the Olympian cave. 

Faggots are blazing 

(Brancusi built the fireplace), 

Fat cocks are roasting. 

Brancusi whips the salad delicately against a wooden bowl. 
Vy casalutestiestapless ss. -aleAsteroid 
Caught snowy from frozen spaces of the sky. 
(Plaster freshly trowled by Brancusi, 

Damp to the touch.) 

Upon its whiteness, 

Color of flame and twilight— 

Capuchins, petals of scarlet 

Sinking in twilight. 


Brancusi pours the wine into the glasses. 

He has forgotten his cool marbles. 

The wine bubbles, crimson and amber; 
Fruits shine on fig leaves— 

Pomegranates, peaches like Chinese silk. 
Fragrance sifts through the fumes of wine and fruit. 
Brancusi is grinding coffee 

In a cylinder of Turkish brass. 

One sees cloudily, 

A faun’s head, black curls, curved onyx horns, 
Brancusi smiling. 


Gravitation loosens its clutching; 
The roof of the cavern has become moonlight; 
We rise slowly, beating the air rhythmically 
With small cloven hoofs; 
Slowly as befits mortals who have put on 
Godship for the moment, 
Following Pan, turning a coffee grinder of ‘Turkish brass, 
Speaking the tongue of dreams, 
Of the lion and the lizard, 
We arrive 
On Olympus. 
JEANNE ROBERT FOSTER 
Rock-Flower. 


He has been making these ‘‘Birds’’, they say, for years, 
again and again—the one I saw was a slender shape of the purest 
marble about three feet high and tapering so finely as almost to 
form a thread where it joined its diminished pedestal—yet, as Mr. 
Ezra Pound remarks, though they appear identical in reproduction, 
there is perhaps six months’ work and twenty years’ knowledge be- 
tween one model and another. It is an attempt, he says, to solve the 
“maddening difficult problem of getting all the forms into one form,” 
and Brancusi, with characteristic indifference, disarms any critics 
by asking them to wait until he is in the churchyard before they dis- 


cuss esthetics with him. ANGUS WILSON 


New York Times. 


Unless one can come to such art in the unprejudiced mood of dis- 
covery, there is little use pretending this or that about Brancusi’s 
art. If, however, the visitor will restore his natural enthusiasm 
for lovely form no matter how found or fashioned, if he will ap- 
proach these slender shafts of marble or polished bronze, these ro- 
tund masses of stone or metal as if they were washed-up treasure on 
some pebbly beach without particular history or hall-mark, then 
something of Brancusi’s special gift will become apparent. 


RALPH FLINT 


Christian Science Monitor. 


A colossal ignorance of art in general places one very little behind 
even the critics when it comes to an understanding of Constantin 
Brancusi’s work. ‘The strangeness and enigmatic simplicity of it 
have puzzled nearly everyone. He is evidently headed for somewhere 
but where, he doesn’t seem to know himself, nor care. Whether | 
you consider it art or not, the man is sufficient artist to feel that none 
of his pieces has come up to what he had hoped and intended it 
should. 

FLORA MERRILL 
New York World. 


For years he will keep under his eyes some beam of weathered oak © 
that he has saved from a demolished house, or some water-worn 
stone that he has picked up by the river, until, having lived with 
them, he feels able to touch them without spoiling their natural 
beauty, which must be embodied in his work. 

WALTER PACH 
The Masters of Modern Art. 


—a 


EXHIBITS 


(Clie Bias: Utena) MOV RASRWAL)) glover ele a en ne 1910 
PVranaSUi awe lla Loman GestOne ie. ota wee a aks. aoc. eae 1912 
Negri Cae COL OMOAIs Mt ue Slaton 8. cry + ons Medak ew 608% 1915 
MiremiS Some SLONC) Menten tic ache. ered. hiya uns osea wo on 1908 
IS. JEXOLEAE (Saeed) Se acto ae 1915 
Peete CUCM TN ag DIC) mene ts. Og rebels! on) onal iat 
UEP ST ANCETOU UG Le YG OV Die iers an ere ae ene ee Ls 
iP esa SA WENS {OLIN 8) CS) WEP reo ree, A aera, tee het eg eera rere ar are aa 1914 
ec Gam rOLGmU a Kiara nee Ae te Pin, Saleen cg ay ean 1918 
ee HOD Lr Gmarn a CDG) wats.) aki ile Gh pt Nes we aoe kaa 1974 
Be orotagy OUneHVlanc( Walntit) 24.08) a0) ae ee eee 1922 
com imem COUN Oa Gri Cle (ONYX): ho. este ee eee 1918 
RS HmUCOLOLCCaMarDl6,)) §. gc dyin 1 citiens ane ee ee ee 1922 
Priclmmepolisheds Dron Ze)~ conc ehe ince ec Shy ee ee ee 1926 
Meet tt Lime ya fh) C.) tacts 2 cee erecting eee 1916 
Be S OR GOLUOa Kae isk ht ban ae ere re a aes Mey Ree ha 1920 
Ped anie old: OAK) i. ace ten vmead eae cake nk irae ee eee 1974 
HEVCR COLA OA Ki at) ne enn) ky v.20 gee aah dae ne eee ee eval 
MilesPogany-((polisheds bronze). masen ean re ee 1920 
Golden: Bird (( polished bronze) ie ge. cane na ee DOD 
‘Torso:ofeanyoung: Girlie Cony x) g:eeey ete eee eee [972 


BrodigalsSon™ (wood \ ee: ergs te eer ee ee eee ES 
Collection Walter C. Arensberg 

Docta tess aldroak |e eens: RMN Mead ee MATES sili rath 24 128 

Mile a Pooan yeast iat 16 \i ere ner cee eeeen caer ae eee ea, 

Bortrait (polishedabronze\m. eee tae oe ee 1916 
Collection Walter C. Arensberg 

Birdan:S pacer (marble) grec meaeac nts ee ee 1928 

Blond Neeress (polished) bronze) ) ae. men) eee eee 1926 
Collection Eugene Meyer, Jr. 

GOcke (wa litt canon ogee ene ae MME aR i) OR Ses se 1924 

The Chiets( walnut). 37 eee mee 1925 
Bird in'Space*(marble) (ys <8 ee 1925 
Collection Eugene Meyer, Jr. 

Column Without=Bnd=(old™cak \a. 5 iy ane 1918 

The Beginning ot the World (marble j)) eer eee Wes 
Bird in Space*( polished bronze) a...) 1925 
Collection Edw. J. Steichen 

GIP = (WOOK) ia) oan. hg ne eee errr is eee wernt | 
Child’s Head ( gilded'bronze) =) 4. Dues, 

New Born (polished bronze) 3.) = O20 
Birdim Space (yellow marble)i jr 1925 


38—42 Five Bases 


43 


Painting 2 .o.2 3 ie a ee 1916 


44/0) Studies... 2 fe on 0 ieee ee 1910-1916 








: a ‘ . re r wer f 
a i og a i 
‘ i : 
4 - 
* 
aaa 
6 
; P 
s 
\ 
BROOKLYN EAGLE 
: 
J 











